Thursday, April 13, 2017

I was given some advice recently to post more positive and less critical blogposts.

So, I thought I would share the following experience that happened to me this week. As many of you know, this week Christians around the world call this the "holy week" as we observe and remember the last week of Christ's life, his death and his resurrection.

This week is also Passover which began on Monday evening at sundown. (In Hebrew it is known as Pesach which means “to pass over”. This sacred Jewish day commemorates liberation of the Israelites from Egyptian slavery. It also is symbolic of God "passing over" the Jewish homes marked with the blood of a lamb protecting them from the 10th plague that killed the firstborn child of each family in Egypt.)

On Monday night, right after sunset, I received a phone call from a nurse in the Trauma unit at our local hospital about a mile from our home. She asked if I would be able to come quickly to give a Priesthood blessing to a young woman who had just been in a car accident. I immediately got ready and rushed over to the hospital with a friend. Upon arriving at the Trauma unit hospital, I was told that this young woman has been driving her car when she blacked out, crossed lanes of traffic causing a multi-car accident. She hit a pole and her car was completely totaled. Both airbags in her car deployed. The doctors did not know the full extent of her injuries yet...but from the initial tests it looked like her blackout was caused by a ruptured brain aneurysm. She was medically induced into a coma to help reduce the swelling on her brain and to stop the bleeding.

Along with her mother and a few family members we circled her bed with unified faith. I offered a prayer asking the Lord to hear our plea to heal her of her injuries. We then anointed her head and gave her a priesthood blessing that she would heal.

As if the accident was not tragic enough, this young woman is also a Bride-to-be. Her wedding is scheduled for this Saturday in the Salt Lake Temple. Her fiance lives in Virginia and was not flying out to Utah until this Thursday. So what was to be a beautiful week.. and the most important day of her life was now turned upside down.

After much fasting and prayers on her behalf these past couple of days, she is now making a full recover. She is talking and it does not appear that their has been any brain damage. The bleeding in her brain has stopped, the swelling is back down to normal, and she did not receive any injuries due to the car accident. While she will remain in the hospital through tomorrow, the doctors are very optimistic that she will be able to still get married on Saturday. Truly a miracle on this holy week.

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Now, on a deeper level, this experience has been very symbolic to me. It has many parallels to what I have read in the scriptures about the bridegroom and us being the bride hoping to be ready for the wedding feast. Here are a few quick examples of the similarities. The bride "blacked out".. she "fell asleep", only to wake up and find herself in an awful situation. Badly injured, she was in need of the repair, and to start healing(repenting) in order to get ready for her wedding. Her bridegroom has not been present during this time. However, the best friend of the bridegroom was one of the first ones at the hospital and has made sure she was taken care. He participated in giving her the blessing. Her fiance, the bridegroom. arrived earlier than planned. He has not left her side since he arrived. The wedding is still planned to happen at 12:00 noon this Saturday.

All of her family and friends have been fasting and praying in her behalf. They have the faith and hope that she will be out of the hospital in time to be at her wedding (and feast) this Saturday, the day before Easter. Prayers have been answered. Heaven has heard the pleas in her behalf.

I am grateful to have experienced this miracle as we look forward to celebrate the greatest miracle.. this Sunday. The resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. A day when we celebrate the rebirth, new life and the promise of Life Eternal.